In a Truck in Brooklyn, a Church Offers Spiritual Guidance

Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Jose Vasquez, 19, handed out pamphlets promoting a local church’s mobile prayer truck in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Victor J. Blue for The New York Times Victoria Rodriguez, left, held hands with a visitor to the prayer truck, where mny seek spiritual help for problems with jobs and their health.

Lucia Mora, 47, was nervous as she entered the white R.V. parked on 42nd Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Inside, the truck resembled a comfortable, but worn living room. Victoria Rodriguez, 50, a pastor’s assistant at Iglesia El Camino, a church on 46th Street, sat Ms. Mora on the couch. “What would you like to pray for?” she asked.

“I have many problems right now,” Ms. Mora said quietly. Her daughters were living in Mexico with her sister, who was struggling to take care of her own children. She’d recently lost her job cooking at a taqueria in Queens. And she was worried about her health: “I have headaches, pains,” she said. “But I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

“God will give you strength,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “He has his hand on your family.”

Watching from the doorway, Letizia Hernandez, 64, a church volunteer, came closer. ! As Ms. Rodriguez put her hand on Ms. Mora’s shoulder, Ms. Hernandez touched her other shoulder. They prayed: “Lord, reunite Lucia with her daughters, and help her sister. Let prosperity come into Lucia’s life, and let depression leave. Sanidad. Gracia, gracia por Lucia.”

After a long winter off the street, the four-year-old prayer station has returned to its spot on Fifth Avenue. Some afternoons, people hurrying along the commercial strip â€" past the discount stores and small markets â€" ignore the R.V., and the teenage evangelists outside it asking, “Would you like us to say a prayer for you?” Other afternoons, there’s a steady stream of people, mostly from the neighborhood, waiting to get inside.

As a visitor heads into the air-conditioned truck, the cacophony of the street fades away. For about 10 minutes, visitors â€" many of them out of work and struggling â€" open up about their problems, and get spiritual counseling from Ms. Rodriguez, the head of intercession at Ilesia El Camino, a predominately Dominican church. Troubles can feel less overwhelming; for some, faith is renewed. And though people are encouraged to attend the church, and pamphlets are handed out, the mood is more of solace, than of a hard sell. Visitors say they generally leave feeling a bit lighter, buoyed, before disappearing down the street.

“We listen,” said Ms. Rodriguez, who was raised in the Dominican Republic, and has worked in churches since she was a child. “We don’t force people to give all the details. When people speak, they feel better.”

The Rev. Juan Castillo, 56, the pastor of Iglesia El Camino, conceived of the idea for the prayer station four years ago, when he spotted a college recruitment truck in the Bronx.

“I thought, ‘That’s beautiful,’” the pastor said. “‘I can do that for my church â€" reach out to people.’” Initially, he rented two trucks, staffing them three afternoons a week. This summer, he’s starting slowly, send! ing out o! ne truck, on Fridays, from noon to 2 p.m. “It isn’t only to get people to come to my church,” added the pastor, who has led his 300-member congregation for 18 years. “But also to help people in the neighborhood heal.”

Most visitors want to talk about family problems. Often, Mr. Castillo said, “the husband has left. The mom is poor, and raising the kids by herself.” Other problems can follow, he added, “The young people often struggle in school; health suffers.” Poor health is always an undercurrent. “People ask us to pray for them because they have a pain,” the pastor said. “Once they start to talk, we find out they have many things â€" diabetes, heart disease.”

Afterward, volunteers make follow-up calls. “We offer to pray with them over the phone, and sometimes make home visits,” said Jahaira Placencia, 24, an assistant to the pastor. But visitors rarely end up joining the church, she said: People mostly stop by the R.V. once â€" when they are in crisis

On a recent 90-degree day, Olga Maria Castillo, 29, a slim woman with long, dark hair, entered the R.V. When Ms. Rodriguez asked, “What is your prayer request?” she said, shyly, that she wasn’t interested in money. Ms. Castillo (no relation to the church’s pastor) wanted a prayer for her health, and that of her husband and family. For two years, she has been unable to work because of severe arthritis in her hands, she explained. Now her doctor said she needed surgery. She showed Ms. Rodriguez her long fingers, which were curled.

Closing her eyes, Ms. Rodriguez prayed with her “to accept and acknowledge God, to trust the Lord to make you better.” Ms. Castillo’s eyes closed too. She said that, for the first time, she felt the power of God.

Before leaving, she promised to attend services at Iglesia El Camino.

Afterward, she stood hesitantly on the sidewalk â€" tall in a blue-patterned shift â€" then headed home.